Chapter 7 - Frustration, Death And Inception?
Hitori woke up instantly, and sat up dead straight when she heard cursing and what sounded like a smash of glass coming from somewhere in the house. She sat still, 'feeling' for any presence aside Deidara's, and when she figured that no one else was there, she got up and walked out of the bedroom, still on her guard, not that she ever dropped her guard, and stopped when she saw Deidara looking completely guilty, and she looked down at the smashed plate on the ground and food scattered everywhere and the two bowls that he was holding in each hand which looked like they had something in them.
She just stood there, staring at the sight before her and simply raised an eyebrow in question. Deidara chuckled nervously, and put the two bowls back on the counter, and began to clean up the mess he made. Hitori grabbed a broom from the bathroom, and walked back out to help. When they got everything cleaned up, she leaned with her back against the counter and gave him a look that clearly said 'What the fuck happened?'.
He chuckled nervously again. "Um, I was trying to make some breakfast to bring into the bedroom for us, but I accidentally knocked the plate off the counter somehow..." he sheepishly scratched the back of his head and inwardly hoped that she wouldn't take him outside and beat the shit out of him for it.
"You're a shinobi, an S-ranked one at that, yeah. How the hell are you not dexterous enough to stop that kind of thing from happening?" Hitori just rested her head on her hand silently. Then she started laughing. "I don't think you realise how hilarious you looked when I first saw you. You looked like a puppy who was caught doing something it knows it shouldn't be doing!" Deidara just stood there frowning at her metaphor, but his mouth was twisted in a slightly embarrassed smile.
When she calmed down she took the two bowls of soup and brought them into the bedroom, setting them both down on her bedside table as Deidara brought in the two glasses of juice he poured earlier and swapped Hitori a bowl for a glass. They both ate in silence, all the while Deidara had a slightly furrowed brow and Hitori just slurped down her soup happily until she noticed his expression.
She swallowed the mouthful of soup she had and spoke. "What's up with you, huh?"
"Well, I was trying to do something...nice...since you have been letting me stay with you and all. But clearly it failed miserably, yeah." he kind of hesitated saying 'nice' since it really wasn't in his nature to do 'nice' things, being an ex-Akatsuki member, terrorist bomber and everything that came with that territory.
She shrugged indifferently. "Doesn't worry me, yeah. It is nice having you around. I haven't really made any friends since we got separated. The last time that I made friends was with a cat who had a thorn in it's foot. I pulled it out and healed it up. Cliche, I know, but it happened, yeah."
Deidara nearly spat out his last mouthful of soup from laughing but luckily he held it in. He knew Hitori would probably make him wash the sheets and blankets by hand if he did that. After punching him a few times, of course. Just the mental image of the woman sitting beside him, dressed up in her usual ninja attire, katana strapped to her back, petting a small cat and pulling a thorn from it's paw and healing the wound. He couldn't take it seriously.
"Why is that funny? I like animals, so...shut up!" Hitori faced away from him and finished her soup quicker than she thought possible while Deidara just rolled around on the bed laughing. She gathered her clothes, and a few weapons and flung a shuriken at Deidara, which he barely dodged with a yelp, and lodged into the head of the bed, a few inches from his own head.
"Get dressed. We're training. And I guarantee that I'm going to get you back laughing for at my expense." she glared at him and threw another shuriken at him when she decided he wasn't moving quick enough. She tried not to laugh as he yelped again and narrowly dodged the shuriken and walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
When she came out, dressed and armed for the training session, she found Deidara outside, already warming up. She huffed triumphantly before she walked out the door to meet him in the clearing. They briefly talked about what they should do, and decided on warming up with a little taijutsu before moving onto using weapons and the wooden katana before doing strictly ninjutsu. The taijutsu section went quickly, and Hitori wasn't able to gain the upper hand as quick as the first time, and she felt rather proud of how quick he was learning.
They moved onto using weapons and Deidara got a small cut on his upper arm from just getting out of the way of a Fūma shuriken that Hitori had pulled out of nowhere. She healed it up straight after she'd done it and told him that he was lucky since she might have taken his arm off if he reacted any later. She did it on the guise of not leaving any physical evidence behind, but she did feel a bit bad about hurting him. He just looked at her with a mischievous expression and told her that he'd just have to find a zombie that could patch him up, and he earned a firm but playful punch to the gut for that comment.
They spent a little longer on using katana than they did on the weapons or taijustu, mainly because of Deidara's lack of experience with them. Afterwards, he was able to move a lot quicker, and use more power behind his attacks and defend himself much better than he could before they started. He ran inside and got two cold bottles of water for them both and they had a rest before moving onto what would undoubtedly be the most interesting part of the day.
Ninjutsu only. Neither of them had any idea how much the other had progressed in this area, beside them both having a vague knowledge of a couple of techniques that they could both use.
Facing off on each end of the clearing, they both looked straight in each other's eyes for any sign of what the other would do. Faster than Deidara could register, Hitori started doing hand seals.
"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!" she yelled while bringing her hand up to her face and exhaling and watching Deidara move out of the way of the flames. Deidara instantly had both his hands in his clay pouches and had already started modelling the clay. A few seconds later, out popped a few small clay birds, and they went straight towards Hitori. She went to get a few shuriken from her leg holster out of instinct, but remembered that she couldn't use them. She jumped out of the way, but they didn't explode. This confirmed her earlier theory about them only exploding on command. She presumed that he could also use Doton jutsu, and kept an eye on the terrain in case he altered it to his advantage.
She jumped up high and used her Chidori Kunai jutsu and noticed that the birds stopped dead in their tracks. Smiling triumphantly, she realised that she'd also just found a loophole. She could use her Chidori Kunai jutsu and she would still technically be using ninjutsu. She laughed internally and turned her attention to Deidara who seemed to be rather disgruntled but he was most likely preparing more bombs. She flickered directly in front of him, laughed in his face and then flickered, appearing a few yards away.
Deidara was clearly scowling now, with her obvious advantage in speed, and she had already figured out that his jutsu was earth-based. As well as her being able to use ninjutsu based kunai.He grumbled, then Hitori grabbed his attention by stopping and snapping her head in one direction and eyeing the area suspiciously. Her hand twitched over her leg holster instinctively, and she turned to him with a look that said 'Something is coming' and ran off inside to get more weapons and her katana. Deidara followed suit, and grabbed his other clay pouch and decided to grab one of the katana strapped to Hitori's wall.
She eyed him questioningly, but figured that even though he wasn't good enough to use it in a proper battle yet, it was pretty hard to be over-armed as a shinobi. They walked out, and she realised, that having him there could be bad if whoever was coming over there way recognised him and somehow let their village know he was alive. But on the other hand, they were probably drawn to the place by the chakra output they had going during the sparring session and she couldn't possibly try and convince them that there was no one else around.
They walked out until they were about a hundred yards away from the house and Hitori said to Deidara that they would be here inside of 3 minutes.
"They? There's more than one? Can you tell how many there are? I was never the best sensor type and you would be more sensitive to chakra, being a medic nin and all." he watched as her gaze turned inward at his question and then she mumbled something for a few moments then turned to him.
"There's four of them, maybe an ANBU cell or something. They are all pretty decent but nothing we can't handle." Deidara nodded once in reply. "They masked their chakra a few minutes after I sensed them, so they probably have a sensor on their team who is better than me. I can't tell now whether they would have medical capabilities, but I'm going to try and take them out first just in case they do." he nodded again and agreed with her logic.
"Alright, so do you want me to take the other three then? I'm afraid that one might be a little too much for you." he said deviously, and tensed slightly when her hand moved, almost waiting for the inevitable and proverbial 'smack-upside-the-head'.
"Usually I'd say something insulting back to you, but I'm sure that they'll be here any second, so prepare yourself." Hitori said quietly while turning her head to look in each direction for any sign of the shinobi and whether they would attack or not.
Luckily, her question was answered for her, when there was a sudden change in the air that signalled a genjutsu had been cast. She abruptly stopped her chakra flow, then blasted it out as much as she could and when the genjutsu dropped she turned to Deidara who looked like he wasn't even stuck in it. His right eye was shut, which was odd, but his chakras didn't feel like someone who was in a genjutsu. She raised an eyebrow, and made a mental note of it, wanting to remember to ask him about that later. Genjutsu was never something she was good with, but maybe he was.
She waited for the hunters to make their next move, and when three shuriken came flying out of the trees from her left, she leapt gracefully out of the way, and flicked her head in the direction from where they came. She took out three poisoned senbon and readied them to be thrown and hopefully; make a hit even a small one. The poison she used would kill even if they gave the target what looks like a paper cut. A hunter nin must have drawn his katana because both her and Deidara her the slight sound of it being pulled out of the scabbard, which would have been a beautiful sound if they weren't about to be attacked with said katana. She gave Deidara a brief nod, who understood her meaning perfectly. She knew that he still wasn't good enough to use it against opponents who had most likely been using them for ages, so she basically looked at him as if to say 'Don't even think about it'. He swiftly put his hands in his clay pouches and started away, while Hitori took a fighting stance.
They stood back to back, waiting for the next move. It was always like this. Just more waiting. It was almost like a seige. She decided that was enough. Deidara's ear pricked when she spoke.
"Get ready to jump." she said so quietly that he could only just hear her, making sure that the hunter nins wouldn't hear it. Then in those next three seconds, she closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, then on the mark of the third second, she felt Deidara jump and instantly dropped to one knee and smashed her fist into the ground, using as much chakra in the impact as possible. The force shook the trees that the hunter nins were in, and she listened carefully for any sounds so she could determine where they were.
There, she heard the of a muffled sound of shock. She sprinted over and swung her leg into the tree that he was in, again using as much chakra into the hit as she could, and smirked as she saw the part of the tree that she kicked almost disintergrate with the extreme force of the blow. Then she just barely heard feet hit the ground a few yards in front of her and knew that if she didn't take the nin by surprise, they probably wouldn't have made any noise at all.
Whatever camoflague jutsu he was using dropped and she could see that she was right. They were ANBU. From Iwagakure. Should've known, she scoffed inwardly, then she felt herself slip willingly into 'work mode'. She heard Deidara set off an explosive and knew that things were getting started for him as well. The Iwa shinobi in front of her, rushed towards her, and another came at her from the right. They both had their katana drawn and before they could blink, Hitori had drawn Hakujou and ,managed to block both of their downward swings. With a blank face, she fought with them both. The next adrenalin filled minutes was full of parries, blocks, dodges, thrusts and swings.
Finally, there was an opening on one of the nin. She swung her blade down, and cut him diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip. It wasn't immediately fatal, but he would bleed out in a few minutes. One down, she thought as she jumped up with ease onto a low branch and sheathed Hakujou and made hand seals that were a bit too fast for the Iwa shinobi to follow.
"Katon: Endan no jutsu!" she yelled tonelessly and aimed the scorching flames towards the uninjured Iwa nin, who just barely dodged, and half of the clothes on his left arm had been burnt off, and his skin was red raw. She heard him hiss slightly at the stinging pain and he dropped his katana. There was no way he would be able to wield it with both hands after getting a burnt arm. With noticeable pain, he started making hand seals.
"Doton: Doryūdan!" the Iwa nin yelled and a large ball of mud came flying at her. She used Shunshin to dodge it easily and appeared beside the Iwa shinobi and started throwing various kicks and punches at him. In the background, she could hear Deidara yelling 'Katsu' and then explosions every few minutes, and the sound of his almost maniacal laughter at the fun he was having fighting his ex-fellow ninja. The nin Hitori was up against was fairly smart, and he didn't block any of her taijutsu, just dodged clearly figuring out that he needed to not touch her while she was swinging at him. He finally had an opening and Hitori straightened out her hand so it was completely flat and thrusted it towards his chest, and he didn't have time to move out of the way, so he ended up with a hole the size of a fist through his chest. He fell backwards and hit the ground. He was dead instantly.
Deidara was just finishing of the last nin when he saw Hitori appear beside him and then reappear in front of the shinobi he was about to aim his next explosive at. The nin fell over, and then all was silent. He stalked over to where Hitori was, standing next to the body, and as he got closer, he saw the hole through the nin's chest. His eyes went wide, and he looked at Hitori with shock and awe. He was impressed with her ruthlessness and lack of mercy. She used to be such an innocent kid, but now, he understood her 'work mode'. She would have made a good Akatsuki member and knew that if it wasn't for her jutsu hiding her so well, she would have been 'recruited'. He watched as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a few moments, and when she opened them again, they held a small glint of triumph in them.
"That was...uh..." he said as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"It's my...favourite way to kill someone" Hitori said quietly as she held up her right hand, which was covered in blood, with disgust and shook some of the blood off. "Where's the other nin? Don't tell me he ran off" she added, her tone laced with irritation. She looked at him questioningly when Deidara didn't reply and he just raised an eyebrow and gave a small malicious smirk, and she instantly knew what he did to the nin, who was undeniably now scattered ashes all over the ground. She returned his sadistic smirk and told him to 'dispose' of the bodies the same way he did with the other nin.
She began slowly strolling back with subconscious caution, and keeping her senses running high in case there was more nin on the way. She heard one large explosion, which would have been made up of three smaller ones, and then a few moments later Deidara caught up to her and they casually strolled back to the house. When they got back, Hitori went to fix something for them to eat, only to find that there wasn't much there.
"Dei, get up you bum. We're running out of food with you here. Get ready and we'll go in town. We can get take-away for dinner while we're there." Hitori yelled towards the bedroom, where she knew Deidara was probably already spread out like a starfish on the bed.
"Ah, fuck off. I can't be bothered. Just bring me back something, I'm pretty hungry." he yelled back. He most certainly was spread out like a starfish on the bed, and he definitely did not feel like moving any time soon. He wasn't used to be able to lay around and relax all day, so it was a nice change of pace.
Hitori groaned. "I'm not getting you anything unless you come with me!...Fucking ungrateful free-loading bastard." she added in a grumble while writing a list of what they needed to buy.
They argued for a few minutes more, but Hitori eventually got her way, as she always did, and Deidara finally got up. He quickly changed into a clean shirt, since the other one had a few blood splatters on the front of it, and when he came out he noticed that Hitori had blood on her shirt too. He mentioned it to her, saying that she should probably change it if they were going to try and keep a low profile. Grudgingly, she agreed and began to plod off, silently, of course, to the bedroom.
Deidara leant against the kitchen counter and incidently, from where he was standing, he got front row seats to Hitori changing. His breath caught in his throat as he watched her shirt lift higher and higher and finally come off completely and drop on the floor. She turned to the side slightly to pick up the clean shirt from the dresser and he absently licked his lips as he appraised her toned figure.
She wasn't incredibly curvy, but it was all woman. All kunoichi. He was never a fan of the ever-lasting beauty kind of art, like Sasori was, but Hitori was almost a compromise between both sides. Her life, for a shinobi, would probably be of an impressive length, no doubt because of her skill. So she would last. But there's those amazing, transient moments where she seems truly happy that give his side more.
He thought that she was beautiful.
Suddenly, there was a slight pang in his chest that he couldn't identify or understand, and he inwardly groaned in disappointment when she pulled her clean top on. Luckily, Hitori hadn't bothered taking off her buckle up boots, so she grabbed the empty pack off the dresser and then she was ready to go. She turned around and the first thing she saw was Deidara staring right at her, with an unfamiliar intensity in his eyes. She didn't bother dwelling on it, and started towards the door. Deidara followed after her and shut the door behind her, and locked it.
They started off towards the closest town and Deidara couldn't get the image of a half-dressed Hitori out of his mind. The way her pale skin gleamed in the natural light and how her hair fell across her back and shoulders. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to stalk up behind her, wrap his arms around her and start laying kisses across her shoulders and up and down her neck. This train of thought was not good, as he felt a little more aware of a certain area on his body than he did a few minutes ago. He knew that Hitori was attractive, but that pang he felt in his chest didn't make sense. He'd never had that kind of thing before.
He realised that he must have been thinking for a while because now a village was coming into sight. They got a whole bunch of groceries which had completely filled the pack and they were just deciding on what to have for dinner when Hitori felt a tingle of chakra. It was close. She snapped her head towards Deidara and looked at him the same way she had earlier today when she sensed the first sign of those hunter nins. They both already had their chakra masked so they just needed to try and blend in with the crowd if they were going to get out of this without fighting anyone.
Neither of them dared to look in the direction of where the tingle came from and they both inwardly hoped that whoever they were, that they weren't with that Iwa ANBU cell that they 'took care of' this morning. There was four tingles of chakra in a large circle around them and they knew that they'd been discovered. And that they were surrounded.
"Shit, we clearly can't get out the village before we take these guys out. And we won't be able to go all out either because we have to make sure that we don't use our jutsu or we'll be identified. We're fucked." Hitori thought out loud and they both knew that this simple trip to get groceries couldn't have turned out any worse. They were supposed to be laying low so that the Akatsuki would have the most minimal chance of finding out that Deidara wasn't exactly dead. They tried to sneak through the crowd, hoping that the ninja would follow them, so they wouldn't have to fight in the town, which meant that they would be able to fight using their own jutsu.
"This is fucking ridiculous. How do they manage to keep finding us?" Deidara hissed as they power-walked through the crowded market place. Hitori didn't reply, and instead just continued walking briskly and kept a close eye on the chakras surrounding them. Clearly they hadn't masked their chakras completely for a reason. They wanted her and Deidara to know that they were there and they had been cornered. Hitori realised at that moment that they weren't moving. She pushed Deidara up against the wall next to them and stood very close to him. His breath caught in his throat as she pressed herself against him. When Hitori spoke, he heard her serious tone, and he knew it was bad.
"Dei, they aren't moving. We're stuck." she thought for a moment, "Let's try and take out one or two of them and hopefully that will open up a path for us to get through. And do not, I repeat, do not use your clay. It will make you clearly identifiable and I won't be using my jutsu either. We cannot let anyone recognise us. Got it?"
"Got it." he managed to say without stuttering or choking up from the after effects of having Hitori whisper in his ear. That kind of thing wasn't good for any man. Especially when the woman that was involved was incredibly attractive, and for a moment he could almost feel her chest brushing against his slightly.
He scolded himself inwardly for getting distracted and resisted the urge to grumble when Hitori pulled away. She started walking again, but slower, waiting for the first move. She could understand why they would purposely trap them here, but it was such a fucking pain. It just had to be today, didn't it. They'd already put up pain in the ass hunter nins today.
They stopped walking after a few minutes, close enough to the location of one of the nins so that they couldn't attack them with anything less than a long range technique, or a ranged weapon, but far enough as to not alarm them. A kunai landed between Deidara and Hitori's feet and they glanced at each other, with irritation in their eyes. Neither side moved, or made any attempt to and after a few minutes, Hitori snapped.
"That's it you fucking meddling bastards." she muttered angrily under her breath and stomped towards the first nin's location. The tingle of chakra moved back a little and she kept on going towards him. The other three moved slightly closer, but they couldn't move any further if they didn't want to break their circle and leave one side unguarded. Hitori flicked in front of the first nin, who was standing behind a large stall, which would conceal them from the rest of the market, and before he could react at all, she grabbed the collar of his shirt, looked directly into the eyeholes of his ANBU mask and her eyes promised cold, bloody murder.
"Here's a fucking tip asshole. Unless you and your buddies want to die even more painfully than I would kill anyone else who got in my way, you'll move, and let us through, so we can take this somewhere else, yeah." she growled at him low and dangerously. He said nothing, and made no move to get out of her way. She let go of him, and thrust her chakra-filled fist at his chest, and there was a sickening crunch when it made impact. He wouldn't be alive for much longer.
Deidara caught up to her, and went to start scolding her for running off but stopped when he saw how angry she was. He knew that this would piss her off, but she was absolutely livid. Then, her expression turned completely blank. She was the most dangerous like this. He also noticed the corpse of an ANBU member laying on the ground a few yards away while a trademark hole through his chest. Hitori took hold of Deidara's arm and began leading him towards the forest, still trying to make sure that they didn't grab the attention of any potential onlookers in the markets.
The three remaining shinobi began to move accordingly to continue to keep them both surrounded since they had probably sensed that one of their own had been taken out. Then, they started to close in on them. With every step the circle got smaller and Hitori's hand twitched over her leg holster. She slowly drew three senbon (the most inconspicuous weapons she had) and readied herself for what promised to be a quick, and most definitely frustrating fight, where they would be forced to conceal their movements as much as possible, and try to make sure that no one aside the ANBU cell realised who they were. They slowly stalked forwards as the nin on the right began to move in front of them at the same speed as they moved forwards. By then, they had moved out of the markets for the most part and hopefully the people around would be smart enough to run when things got started. It would not be pretty.
The two shinobi behind them were beginning to catch up and the nin in front of them had stopped moving completely. Hitori still held her three senbon in her right hand and was careful to make sure that she didn't scratch herself with them, even the slightest since the poison on the was the most deadly in her arsenal and even for a medic nin such as herself, it would be a bitch to fix. She did have the antidote on her, but there was only enough to still the effects for a while so that she would be able to get home and get the proper dosage. Deidara had a kunai at the ready, and she was confident that he would be fine using it, even though when they were up against multiple enemies this morning he had used his usual techniques as well as incorporating a little close range combat, which would have given him even a little more experience.
Deidara kept a close eye on the shinobi in front of them, and simultaneously concentrated on checking for the other nin's chakra behind them. Hitori was much faster, so he assumed that she would take the other two. Both sides were at a stalemate. It was almost like in a Western movie where the tumbleweed goes past when the two rivals are facing off in the main street of the town. Hitori had already had enough of this ridiculousness so she stomped her foot in anger, being careful to not channel any chakra to it so that she wouldn't end up creating a small earth tremor, which would unquestionably get the attention of the whole entire village.
She turned towards Deidara slightly so that he would hear her whispers. "Dei, I've got an idea. Use your Doton: Doryudan, and I'll use my Katon: Endan so we can create a collaboration jutsu to send at them to distract them all and I'll use that chance to try and get them with my poisoned senbon. Just please...don't get in the way. I have an antidote, but not enough to completely neutralise the poison." she quickly glanced around them at the surrounding shinobi, "I've memorised where they are, and I'll be able to sense if they move so that I can still aim properly. We still have to really keep ourselves from being identifiable, so when I give the signal, start making hand seals as fast as you can." they backed up so that they're were completely back-to-back and they both started making hand seals. Hitori needed to keep in time with Deidara as much as possible since they had no practice with something like this. She felt the muscles in his back and shoulders moved and tried to match his pace as best she could.
Back in the day, they had always worked together to survive, but they had never known how to fight properly, especially against shinobi, which ended up being their downfall. She finished doing her hand seals and her and Deidara got into a position that would allow the jutsu to have the best combined effect. They both yelled out the name of their jutsu and they aimed it at the enemy shinobi who got out of the way, and Hitori used her sensory abilities to locate there exact position and threw her first senbon at the nin closest to her. She threw the other two and hoped for the best.
Hitori knew that the jutsu would have definitely got the attention of the people in the crowded market place, so she hissed to Deidara to run as fast as he could towards the forest and they took off at top speed. Deidara had gotten a little faster in their training, but if Hitori really put her mind to it, he would have to use too much chakra to keep up. She stayed behind him a few steps so that she could immediately react when the nins caught up. She wasn't sure if the senbon had hit their targets since they didn't hang out long enough to find out. She knew that she aimed the senbon at the spot where she sensed the chakra's but that didn't always mean it hit it's mark.
She felt two chakra's coming after them and they were much faster than she thought. It only took them all of a few seconds to recover, so she hoped that she got lucky and managed to hit a fatal spot on the third nin. Deidara also sensed them coming and started making hand seals again for another doton jutsu. He hadn't used any ninjutsu techniques other than his art recently so he hoped he still had it in him to use them as good as he used to be able to. He stopped running and looked over at Hitori who knew that he was about to do something from the look in his eyes so she got clear out of the way and watched as he finished making the hand seals.
"Doton: Ganchūsō!" he yelled as he aimed the large pillars made of rock at the persuing nins, who dodged them and Deidara continued to use the jutsu in hope that he might get them in their blind spot, which he did. One of the nin didn't get entirely out of the way quick enough, and got smashed in the leg by one of the pillars and groaned loudly in pain. Deidara smirked at the sound of the impact and he hoped that it hit hard enough so that he would at least be incapacitated. Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky. The nin could still move fast enough to dodge some of the other pillars, but his speed had fallen quite a lot.
Hitori seemed to notice this too, and she ran towards him after Deidara had stopped using the jutsu and launched a barrage of taijutsu at him. He was very good at close-range fighting. But not good enough to keep up enough with Hitori when he had an injured leg. He finally lost his footing after stepping on a rock with his bad leg and lost his balance for a moment. That moment was long enough for Hitori to aim a kick at his side and the impact made a sound which would make most normal people shudder. He was down.
Deidara was actually having a wail of a time fighting the other nin. He was undoubtedly the strongest in the group, most likely the buntaicho of the cell. He was good with evasion, which annoyed Deidara, but it did make it more interesting. Back and forth, both Hitori and Deidara fought for the next few minutes. Lucky that they were both S-class shinobi, or they would be in real trouble fighting these guys. Deidara finally took out one of the nin, but he didn't realise until after that in the heat of battle that he used his jutsu and blew up the nin. Shit!, he cringed inwardly and he physically tensed up like he had just gotten rigor mortis when he heard Hitori's low and dangerous growl in the back of her throat.
His back was facing towards her, but he heard her coming (no doubt she let him hear) and he cautiously whirled around to face her, and before he knew it, she had slammed him into a wall of the market place, which was about 10 metres away. Hitori was holding him up off the ground by his throat, and he could barely get enough oxygen so he would have the strength to pry her off. Not that it would be easy to do so, since she had the advantage with her chakra enhanced strength. She looked completely emotionless, but it was incredibly murderous nonetheless, unlike anything he had seen before. He attempted to convince himself it was the lack of oxygen to his brain...but he felt scared. Killing intent was coming off her in waves and it felt like he was drowning, suffocating and burning alive all at the same time. Her viciously blank gaze was set on him, and he struggled to meet her eyes. And he wished he hadn't.
She honestly looked like she was fully prepared to kill him, and then she suddenly seemed to come to her senses, but she didn't release him fully, only enough for him to keep breathing slightly. Her other hand clenched in a fist, and her nails began to draw blood from her palm. She had already lost her temper too far to reign it in fully, but the toneless voice in her head was saying that he disobeyed orders, and that he did not deserve to be on this mission. The other, more colourful voice in her head, which was a little more quiet and distant sounding said that she shouldn't be hurting Deidara. He was her child hood friend and that she couldn't lose him after just getting him back.
Her gaze turned inward as she contemplated what she was doing right now. She had forgotten all about fighting the nins for a moment and couldn't register what happened when she suddenly came to her senses and realised that she currently had her hand wrapped around Deidara's throat, and that she was actually using so much of her strength that he was dangling about half a foot off the ground and that he wasn't even able to struggle because of lack of oxygen and blood to his extremities.
Slowly, she released him, and her expression became more aware, and shocked. Nothing like this had ever happened before. She had never attacked a squad member before. But that may be because they all knew that if they ever disobeyed her orders, that shit would hit the fan. Or worse.
Deidara knew that Hitori wasn't herself when she attacked him, but she seemed to come to her senses quick enough for him to drop down to the ground and fall to his knees instantly and catch his breath for the next few minutes. When he had recovered, he noticed that Hitori was still standing where she had been after she dropped him. In fact, she hadn't moved at all. She was still standing staring into space with her hands at her sides, almost dejectedly, and that she had an expression on her face which suggested that she was a little confused about what happened.
He gradually got up onto his feet and straightened out his clothes a little, and looked at Hitori and almost felt bad. This really could not have turned out worse for them. Hitori eventually snapped out of it and lifted her head up and stared straight into his eyes. She blinked a few times, still looked slightly dejected and confused.
Suddenly, he was distracted as she spontaneously flung her arms around him and drew him as close to her as she could. Deidara was even more confused about her doing this than probably anything he'd experienced in his life. She was holding him so tightly that it was a little difficult to breathe, which didn't help since he was still trying to catch his breath. He just stood there for a moment, utterly shocked at this sudden display of unconcealed emotion from her.
He barely choked out her name before wrapping his arms around her and started stroking her hair gently, hoping it would calm her. It seemed to help because she relaxed in his arms, and inhaled then exhaled shakily and it was almost like she was having her own version of a small breakdown. She stood on her tip-toes and buried her head in the junction of his neck and shoulder since he was about half a foot taller than her. She inhaled and exhaled shakily again and he tightened his grip on her and closed his eyes and tried not to think any sexual thoughts.
That worked for a few moments, until Hitori began to nuzzle him gently and he could feel her lips brushing against his neck and she grabbed onto his hair enough to be painful, but it was exactly what Deidara liked. He knew that she most likely was only doing it for the sole reason of trying to reassure herself that he was still there, and that he was okay. But for him, it was only turning him on and he swallowed heavily.
He turned his head down a little to look at her and he saw that her eyes were shut tightly and she was biting her lip. She felt his gaze and shuddered as she exhaled, and she pulled him closer to her, if such a thing was possible. He pulled back a little and gently cupped her face and lifted her head up so that he could look her in the eye. He began to coo softly to her and tell her that he was fine and she should stop worrying.
"Hey, Kage-chan. It's okay. Stop freaking out, I'm fine. You weren't yourself, it's okay." He reassured her over and over again as he brushed the hair from her face and kept lifting her head back up when she kept trying to look down.
"Dei, I will not lose you again. You may have just made the possibility that Akatsuki could find you and hunt you down before killing you for defecting. I've been on my own long enough...I'm scared of losing you again." She whispered to him and she looked away from him defiantly.
He was incredibly taken aback by her honesty. She would usually never admit to anything like this, not even to herself. He rested his forehead against hers and she finally looked in his eyes again. She was almost looking like her old self after he did something reckless. Worry was written all over her face. He ran his thumb over her cheek soothingly and slowly brought his face closer to hers and with slight hesitance, he softly pressed his lips to hers...